The Strange Speech of Sultan Valad
September 27, 2021
Michael Pifer— Sometime in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, a Sufi poet named Sultan Valad was trying his hardest to get out of delivering a public sermon. He… READ MORE
Tag: Islam
Revolutionary or Impostor . . . Who Was Ahmed Khan?
April 24, 2020
Ian Coller— O Lydian lord of many nations, foolish Croesus,Wish not to hear the longed-for voice within your palace,Even your son’s voice: better for you were it otherwise;For his first… READ MORE
Heaven, Hell, and Non-Muslims in the Qur’an
March 19, 2020
Gabriel Said Reynolds— Heaven and hell are important notions to the Qur’an, the scripture of Islam. The divine voice of the Qur’an assures its audience that those who are faithful… READ MORE
Religion of Radical Love
December 20, 2019
Omid Safi— Our modern word chemistry comes from the Arabic for alchemy, which is not a pseudoscience or primitive science but rather a recognition that all of the cosmos shares… READ MORE
Will They Swing the Thick Stick?
November 5, 2019
Martin Pugh— I spent 1969 to 1971 on Voluntary Service Overseas as a Lecturer in European History at the Aligarh Muslim University in India. It was an exciting time politically… READ MORE
The Rising of Croatia
October 11, 2019
Marcus Tanner— The long rule of the Turks over most of Croatia came to a sudden end in the 1680s. Responsibility for the conflict fell squarely on the Turks. In… READ MORE
What happened after the Crusades?
May 23, 2019
Christopher Tyerman— We all know about the Crusades, don’t we? They were wars fought by western European Christians against Muslim control of Jerusalem and the Holy Land of Palestine. They… READ MORE
Two Rocks in the Holy Land
July 6, 2018
Gabriel Said Reynolds— A traveler walking along the road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem could be forgiven for missing the ruins of the Kathisma Church. The ruins, found just past a… READ MORE
What is Religion?
September 15, 2017
Richard Holloway— As with many useful words, symbol comes from Greek. It means to bring together things that had come apart, the way you might glue the bits of a broken plate… READ MORE
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